Particularly with methods and filling elements for the open jet filling of bottles or other containers, i.e. with methods and filling elements in which the respective container is arranged with its container opening beneath the filling element and at a distance from it, and the liquid filling material is dispensed into the container as an open filling jet during filling, it is customary and also necessary to prevent the liquid filling material from dripping from a dispensing opening after the liquid valve, and hence the filling element, has closed. For this purpose known filling elements exhibit so-called gas barriers as systems or structures that are permanently disposed in the product path or filling material path. Such gas barriers are essentially strainer-like inserts, each having a plurality of channel sections that are configured in the insert and open at both ends and whose cross-section is, in each case, selected so that filling material residues which, because of the surface tension of the liquid filling material and because of the ambient pressure, are present in these channel sections and possibly also in a part of the product path or filling material path above said channel sections, are held back. One of the disadvantages with this arrangement is that such gas barriers, which are permanently disposed in the product path and filling material path, are essentially unsuitable for the filling of products that contain solid or relatively solid constituents, e.g. for filling fruit juices containing pulps, fruit chunks, fruit fibres etc.
Consequently there has already been a suggestion (WO2007/137727 A2) to provide the respective gas barrier in the product path or filling material path so that it can be moved between an active state, in which the gas barrier is located in the product path or filling path, and an inactive state, in which the gas barrier is located outside the product path or filling material path. The fact that an additional control element is required for the gas barrier is a disadvantage.